After rereading the two posts for Mass Effect, I realized I left some things out. I’ll just put them here because I hate editing, and I don’t want to make the posts any longer. Think of this like an extras video! Except there’s no video. Just text.

I can’t believe I didn’t even take the time to touch on the missions for Virmire. I did a little bit in the initial ME post when it came to Wrex’s character, but it didn’t really do the story justice. I also said I’d mention that ONE mission I took Ashley on, and I never did. I’m so glad I don’t blog professionally. I’d live in a box.

Virmire:

Virmire was possibly almost my favorite part in ME1. It was an intense mission with choices that would effect the game all the way through to ME3 for some small parts. I mentioned the ‘stand-off’ Shepard has with Wrex on Virmire, but I didn’t really explain why. Of course, anyone reading this has probably already played ME, but that’s okay. The explanation isn’t a straight story sale.

Wrex is a pissed off krogan on Virmire. Turns out, Saren created a ‘cure’ for the genophage (the disease all krogans have that decrease fertility to slow their population growth) so he could breed a krogan army to fight for him. Your mission on Virmire is to destroy the facility and the cure within it. Wrex is not at all happy about that. If you don’t have enough Paragon/Renegade points, Wrex ends up dead. Luckily, my Paragon was just fine and I could talk him down. I felt so bad for him. 😦

So you’re on your mission to get to the right location to place the bomb to blow up the facility, right? You get a side quest that seems to not have any real relevance to it except to make it easier on you. Disrupt the geth communications and other such things. There are 3 steps to this if I remember. The second being to destroy a satellite used for communication. After that there’s a refueling area and to finish the quest you blow up the fuel tanks. I DID do that, but then the exclamation point for the quest disappeared and it said I had still only done the first two. Well, whatever. That’s that. It didn’t seem that important so I said fuck it and kept going.

Long story short? Captain Kirrahe died. And that’s because my quest didn’t count me destroying the refueling station. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. I now know this decision has relevance in ME3. Fuck my life.

SET US UP THE BOMB

So who you choose to set up the bomb on Virmire doesn’t really matter. It won’t automatically mean that person will die. Near the end of that mission there’s a choice to go save Ashley or go save Kaidan, regardless of what their job was. I was really dismayed that there wasn’t an option to leave them both to die. But after talking to some friends, the consensus was that it was less irritating to allow Kaidan to live in the long run. Sorry, Ashley (no, I’m not). This ALSO has some repercussions in the second and third games. Some may just call them outcomes, but when it comes to those two twats, nothing is good.

End Mass Effect jabbering here!

I never meant to post so damn much in the span of two days. Just wanted to get the ball rolling with this blogging business. My posts will be more infrequent in the future, and I know for a fact that my next one will NOT be about Mass Effect 2. I figured I should space those out. I’m thinking maybe tea or food. Possibly the limited amount of traveling I’ve done. Something. Who knows?

As a disclaimer, this isn’t a walk-through of the game, or even a lengthy review. It’s basically things I remember and like/dislike.

OKAY! Last time left off with my opinions of the crew/characters in ME1. I won’t be going through my opinions on their personal missions because the ones I cared enough about were mentioned in the character descriptions. So this is going to be biased toward characters I actually enjoyed.

Mass Effect 1 differs from ME2 because it was long. There were a lot of side quests that were really not important other than gaining your Paragon/Renegade points and leveling, but as far as story is concerned it was a lot of fluff. That’s perfectly alright to me. I really like seeing characters interact and stories of different people. But it’s not something worth touching on, in my opinion.

Actually, let’s sum up ME1’s story, shall we?

The beginning: Eden Prime

You choose your back story for your Shepard, and while it doesn’t have a hugeimpact on the gameplay, it will get mentioned a handful of times. Especially with my Shepard and her background on Akuze and Mindoir. They love bringing that stuff up. The beginning of the game has you dropped off on a human colony, Eden Prime. It’s supposed to be a beacon for humanity in the galaxy, proving that humans can both colonize and survive/defend themselves. And oh-ho! It’s no ordinary mission! Of course not. A turian Spectre, Nihlus, is there with you revealing that the Council has their eye on you as the ‘first’ human Spectre and is there to evaluate you. NO PRESSURE, SHEP. So, you’re there on Eden Prime to recover the ‘beacon’ -old Prothean technology that could change the fate of humanity and the galaxy (for unknown reasons to you at the time. Just do what you’re told, soldier.).

You hop onto the planet with Jenkins and Alenko (yay…) and bump into Ashley Williams (this is starting well) at some point. But more importantly, this:

OH MY GOD WHAT? Those are called ‘dragon’s teeth’ by humans. They’re what the geth use to impale their organic victims and turn them into husks. Really creepy and mostly annoying husks that groan and swipe at you. The picture doesn’t do it justice, though. The actually impaling is spine tingling.

You fight geth, husks, and probably some mechs? Maybe, I don’t remember too terribly well. You also do the usual, find survivors and talk to them to get information and all that RPG’y stuff. Also, you find Nihlus dead. R.I.P. Nihlus:Who saw that coming? Oh, everyone. Now this may hold no relevance to some people, but this plot device is actually very fantastic. It’s the very beginning of the game. The first non-human you have any contact with who is supportive of you and humanity gets completely murdered within 15 minutes of gameplay. By the ‘main’ bad guy, no less. That’s setting up the tone of the game heavily without throwing away any main characters. It also speaks for humanity’s place in the galaxy before you get very far. At this point, you’re aware that many aliens aren’t incredibly fond of humanity and you know it. And as a shitty side note, it looks like aliens who support humans are on an organized murder list. Okay, maybe not that dramatic, but that’s the way it comes off immediately.

Blah, blah, blah. You talk to some dude behind some crates and he’s seen Saren. You really don’t get much out of him. Then you find the beacon. It’s a metal stick thing. Not very impressive. You get too close and get ALL TO’ UP. It fries you pretty good and infuses you with really strange, incomprehensible visions of something. Looks like sarlacs and Aliens (like the movie). And this?That’s promising.

Okay! That may be as detailed as I get for something that exact. Let’s sprint through the rest of this story. Saren is after this beacon, cipher, and the conduit.

The rest of the game:

The Beacon- Held the collective memories and thoughts of the Protheans.

The Cipher- Used to deCIPHER (Oho) the memories.

The Conduit- Is a miniature mass relay developed by the Portheans during their research into mass relays. It’s essentially the ‘back door’ to the Citadel.

Both Shepard and Saren use the beacon and cipher. So we’re looking pretty well fucked at this point. Saren has access to the geth AND the Reapers. Oh, the Reapers. As far as you know in ME1, the Reapers are a synthetic race. Every 50,000 years they make a visit to the rest of the galaxy and systematically wipe out all organic life. Sounds cozy, right? Saren’s ship, ‘Sovereign’, is also a Reaper. Well shit.

So your goal at this point is to get to the conduit before Saren does. He plans to use the conduit to open the back door into the Citadel to allow the Reapers passage through to do what they do best -murder all the things. He gets to Ilos (the planet with the conduit) before you, how shocking. So you have to race to find this God damned conduit, but you take your time with this old Prothean techno-dude who explains to you in length why the Reapers must be stopped. Yeah, not a time burner or anything. You get your info and then jet toward the conduit. During this part you’re being shot at by geth things and you’re being timed. So yeah, don’t stop to circle jerk with the geth and just haul ass.

You zoom through the conduit via MAKO (GDI MAKO. Since I didn’t touch on side planet missions, I didn’t get to rage about MAKO.) and everything is… kind of on fire. Thus far, we’ve been doing a swell job of cutting Saren off. So the geth are all up in Citadel space and so is Sovereign and Saren. You face off with Saren, mostly hiding behind a wall and bantering with him to try and convince him it’s not too late to turn back. I’m sure that sounds familiar. Now, at this point, I feel a little bad for the guy. He joined up with the geth and Sovereign at first of his own free will, likely for power. But after learning more, he is sure that he can secure a sort of alliance between the Reapers and organics, instead of being completely wiped out. At this point, Saren is pretty well indoctrinated by Sovereign. He was never a good guy by any means. See; Captain Anderson was actually the first to-be or actual human Spectre but Saren was his partner on a mission and totally screwed him over by exploding some sort of plant that killed quite a few innocent people and pinning it on Anderson. In the end, Saren regrets what he has done involving the Reapers, but is convinced there’s no turning back. So he blasts himself in the head. Yikes.

Then you fight SUPER SAREN. Sovereign pieces him together like some horrible spider turian Transformer and you fight him. It’s mostly a waiting game as you avoid his skittering and heavy attacks. Annoying, but not difficult by any means.

After this encounter, you still have Sovereign to deal with. And let me tell you, it and the geth are fuckin’ ships UP. You can make the order to focus on Sovereign and ignore the ship that’s carrying the Council, or you can save the Council. WELL. In MY mind, it was a good idea to focus on the giant God damn Reaper ship that was tearing everything apart, so that’s what I did. The Council perished. I had Garrus with me (of course) and he said something along the lines of, “I hope you know what you’re doing, human.” WHOAH. WHOAH. My heart shattered then. Human? God, Garrus. Right in my soft spot.

At this point after all the action is over, you can suggest either Udina or Anderson to lead the new human Council. Any sane person chooses Anderson.

I am super late on this Mass Effect bandwagon. As in, I started playing sometime this month. I’ve only gotten through the first two (I don’t own the third one yet. DAMN YOU, STEAM.). So this post is going to be about… well, everything I can think of in the most organized way possible. I don’t think I’ll put everything in one post, though. I may not even get through all my thoughts on the first game with this one, but let’s see what we can bang out.

Amelia Shepard (Dat femShep, of course)

I chose the path of being an orphan from the colony of Mindoir and the ‘sole’ survivor of the mission on Akuze. My Shepard went Vanguard for this playthrough, and I went as Paragon as possible. I role-play and play plenty of evil or renegade type characters, but I just felt the Paragon vibe with my Shep, so that’s what I went with. I did the exact same thing with my female Trooper when I played SWTOR. She gained some Renegade points, of course. She’s not gonna let people walk all over her. She’s fuckin’ SHEPARD.

The beginning:

Upon beginning the game, I made a comment something to the effect of, “Oh, hello, Nihlus…”. To which my boyfriend replied, “Don’t get used to him.”. FIRST OF ALL, RUDE. Spoiling bastard. Second of all, aww. 😦 Why does Saren have to be such a DICK? Then again, if I was a Spectre and some other random Spectre was there that I didn’t know was there, I’d be like, “HEY, wait a minute.” and definitely NOT turn my back on him. R.I.P. Nihlus.

When you first start on Eden Prime, you have those two randoms that go out with you, and I immediately facepalmed as the one named Jenkins ran into enemy fire. Thanks for that, Bioware. That’s something I wanted to remember again. It wasn’t beating a dead horse or anything. Oh, wait, I’m years behind. That Leeroy Jenkins reference might have been topical at the time. ANYWAY.

ASHLEY. Go away. She was such a bland character to me that it didn’t even occur to me that she would be someone I recruit to my squad (even though I DID know before hand). She’s what many of my friends call a ‘space redneck’. DEM ALIENS TAKIN’ OUR JERBS. I never took her on a mission. Not once. Well… one. A certain one. We’ll get to that later.

KAIDAN. What is it with humans? Why are they all just crap characters? Kaidan is as mediocre as Ashley but mildly less annoying (or so I thought). I always talked to him like I would with anyone on my crew, but his stories were so incredibly boring to listen to. The entire time I was just trying to NOT romance him.

GARRUS. Oh, yes. Yes. If I was certain of anything in Mass Effect, it was that Garrus would be mine. I deliberately didn’t romance anyone in ME1 because I didn’t want to screw things up with Garrus, or otherwise look like a hussy. I had a galaxy to save, God dammit. I just adore his character. In this post, I’ll only touch on his ME1 self. He was totally my bro through the entire game, and he went on every mission with me. I really just adore turians, and Garrus is my #1 turian. For his personal mission to find Dr. Saleon, I let the doctor die (by Garrus’ hand, I think. A lot of ME1 is a little hazy for me). I love Garrus’ passion for his work and his disdain for the confines of C-Sec and the law when he needs to get something done. Though, the entire game I could be heard shrieking like a banshee, “WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME?”.

WREX. If you don’t like Wrex, you’re the worst human being ever. I love his personality and attitude. He’s not your typical blood thirsty, kill for credits bounty hunter. He may mostly mask his concern for the fate of his people but it’s something he does care about. He and Garrus are the two I always had by my side unless I had to exchange one for a personal mission. He always has Shepard’s back and respects the shit out of her. The situation on Virmire was TENSE, yo. I was so worried that I would lose Wrex, but I had enough Paragon that I had the option to calm him down and have him agree to destroy the ‘cure’ for the genophage. Close one, buddy.

LIARA. No. Just no. She was scissoring me with her eyes and she was just so insufferably annoying. I also dislike asari intensely. They’re gross. GROSS. They remind me of twileks (Star Wars), and man, do I hate those things. Other than her being a weirdo asari, she IS rather helpful and very loyal. Maybe if she had been a different race and a little less all up on me, I’d like her a little bit more. As it is, not so much. So no, I did NOT purchase Lair of the Shadow Broker. Although I SHOULD since I’ve heard great things about it, anyway.

TALI. She has been the only female main character that I’ve even liked so far. The rest seem over-sexed or just too bland. Tali is a sweetheart and incredibly smart. I love quarians and their suits. At first she comes off as shy and possibly bland, but she has a fiery temper on her without bordering on violent or crazy. I have more to say about her for ME2 later probably. She really didn’t do much on my ship in ME1.

JOKER. Oh man. I love me some Joker. He cracks me up, and only gets better in ME2 (once again, will do ME2 in another post).

SAREN. He’s a turian. So I kinda want to bang ‘im. Other than that, he was such a pain in the ass. Also, that creepy thing with Benezia. They totally did it. Saren, you dog, you. As a character, I liked him quite a lot. Especially around the end of the game. He was never a good guy by any means, but I do believe that he truly thought he was doing what would save the galaxy.

THE COUNCIL. Do-nothing bureaucrats, of course. I’m not sure why I never hung up on them during calls. That damn turian. SHUT UP. I CAN DO MY JOB.

I think that’s enough for now. Waded into the characters and such. Next time I’ll touch more on game mechanics and story as best as I can. It would have been better if I wrote this when I was actually playing through it, but the blog didn’t EXIST then. I’m no time traveler. But I’ll do my best.

Everyone is doin’ it, right? I meant blogging. Not sex. Stop being weird on my blog.

I just thought it would be a fun little thing to do whenever something terrible, awful, or kind of fun pops into my head. My little tagline sort of says it all. Those are things I like to do, and like to talk about. So that’s what I’ll do. If not just to keep myself occupied.

I have a feeling my first real post is going to invoooolve…

And if we’re all lucky, it won’t be an entire post involving me fangirling over Thane and Garrus. I will legitimately talk about the actual game. Promise! Mostly.